We Did It! 14-year-old Amitis Finally Reunited WIth her Mom After 39 Months Apart

After 39 months of needless suffering caused by Canadian delays in processing her application, 14-year-old Amitis was finally reunited with her mom in Canada this week. While we share in the tears of reunification joy, we remain appalled at the heartlessness that continues to guide Canadian refugee and immigration policy. The Rural Refugee Rights Network initiated a public campaign calling for this moment, and with the days of lobbying, calling, and writing, we raised the shame of keeping a young girl apart from her mother while highlighting one more example of an especially cruel system.

A year ago, Amitis wrote an open letter to Justin Trudeau. 

"Every night I sleep on a pillow soaked with tears and praying to God,” Amitis wrote. "Harder than that, every day, I open my eyes with the anticipation of the good news that would mean that separation and sorrow is finally over, that I can finally hug my mother, and that entering Canada and embracing my mother is not an imagination any longer. However, alas, days are passing without any positive news. Again, night falls and I repeat the same routine and daydreaming. A sickness has developed in me as the result of this separation which is causing me depression to a point that sometimes I choke from sorrow. Physicians cannot help. They can not fix the agony that is resulting from this long separation. Tolerating these torments for a 13-year-old girl is not fair. The anticipation of all the activities I can do with my mother, the gaps in my soul, and certain issues and difficulties related to my age and gender  can only be understood by my mother, since she is the only family that I have in this world."

May Amitis and her mom enjoy the precious moments they can now share together. 

May the rest of us act to fundamentally change a system which enforces such cruelty on children and their parents.

To support the work of the Rural Refugee Rights Network you can send an etransfer to tasc@web.ca or email for details on writing a cheque.

(Special thanks to Reza Shahpori of Moonlight Immigration Services for his tireless efforts!)